Vicky Ford: I thank the hon. Gentleman for thanking the young women who came forward with their testimonials. We agree on that, and we also agree that keeping children and young people safe is a complete priority. I must, however, refute the suggestion that the Government have not taken action on the matter over recent years, because we absolutely have. We first introduced the statutory safeguarding guidance back in 2015, and we update it every year. It contains a section specifically addressing peer-on-peer sexual violence and harassment. Last year, through the UK Safer Internet Centre, which the Government help to fund, we provided schools with guidance on actions to take when they are aware of the sharing of nude images.
We also introduced the new compulsory relationships and sex education and health education curriculum, largely as a result of the Women and Equalities Committee’s report. Of course, it took some time to make sure that the curriculum was right, because this is a highly sensitive issue. The curriculum was due to roll out compulsorily last September, but because of the pandemic it needed to be delayed until this September. We have already provided schools with a huge amount of training and teaching on how to roll out the curriculum. Indeed, this time last year we ran many seminars, which schools attended, on rolling out the mental health and wellbeing aspects of that curriculum. We will now be working, as I said, very closely with schools to ensure that they have support as it becomes more compulsory next term.
There are many schools, including the excellent school in Solihull that we heard about on the radio this morning, that are already delivering this curriculum in a really constructive and excellent way. Then there is the violence against women and girls strategy, on which we have had one of the largest ever consultations. It was right of the Government to reopen that consultation after the tragic death and murder of Sarah Everard in order to enable girls and women to come forward with their own suggestions.
The Online Safety Bill will be a benchmark and a reset, putting children’s safety at the very forefront of it. Incidentally, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Home Secretary is completely correct in her concerns about end-to-end encryption and its potential impact on children’s safety.
Guidance has been set up. For example, we established the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. As the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) knows, we have been looking at this issue for many months now and we will be reporting back on it. There is, of course, more that we can do. While individual schools have a responsibility to keep reports of sexual harassment, Ofsted will now be questioning and quizzing schools on those reports, enabling it to look at the issue in detail. For example, if a school is not reporting any incidents and yet we know that those incidents are so prevalent,  we need to know whether there is something in the culture of that school that means that children do not feel comfortable coming forward. These are the sorts of further actions that will be taken, but they build on actions that we have been taking over many years, because we know that the online world in particular is forever evolving and brings dangers for children.

Vicky Ford: The sex education curriculum that we have had in the past has not been fit for purpose in a digital age, and that is precisely why we have gone through this exercise over the past few years, with deep consultation and many experts working on it, to bring the new RSHE curriculum into place. This will be compulsory from September. There are already many excellent examples of schools teaching it well, although we do hear, as we have through the Ofsted report, that teachers would like more support and advice on how to deliver it, and we have promised today that we will set  that out. That is also why we are asking, or encouraging, all schools to take an inset day and dedicate time to this. They have the curriculum; there is a wide range of different tools to help them deliver it and it is absolutely key for our children that they get supported by this curriculum, because it will help teach them about what is safe and what is not safe.
We are in a digital revolution and we have been for many years, and for a lot of children, especially during the pandemic, being able to be with friends online is absolutely key, but it also does bring harms and what we have seen, sadly, through the pandemic is the acceleration of some of these harms, particularly in areas such as online pornography. That is another reason why it is absolutely right that we are acting now.

Vicky Ford: First, let me discuss the specific helpline that we have set up. We obviously fund many other helplines through the NSPCC, including the ChildLine number, at the moment. Since we set up the helpline, we have had 400 calls, so as long as it is being used, it is good. If we start to see it tailing away—I cannot comment post October. But we do want to ensure that there is always a place that a child can go to for advice. At the moment, this helpline is the bespoke place for advice, but that is why we have committed to the NSPCC and ChildLine for so many years.
Let me turn to boys. Again, part of the whole new RSHE curriculum is teaching healthy relationships and healthy behaviour: what is acceptable and not acceptable; what is coercive behaviour; what is abusive behaviour; what is harassment; and respect for each other. I think it is important that while we are clear that abuse is abhorrent, we also need to recognise that not all boys and men are abusers, and no one is saying that. We need to make sure that we put in protections and that we are there to act and help a girl who has been abused, but not make the suggestion that all boys are inherently abusers. That is the level that teachers will be working to when they are teaching this, to ensure that they get the balance right.